Houston Chronicle
February 2026
Both the 2023 production and its recording were led by soprano Janai Brugger and mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as the Civil War-era story's pair of unlikely partner spies.
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Houston Chronicle
San Francisco Classical Voice
December 2025
Twenty-five years after its premiere, composer Jake Heggie and librettist Terrence McNally’s empathic opera about a Death Row inmate and the Catholic nun who becomes his spiritual adviser felt more dramatically intense than ever in its return to SF Opera and was filled with wrenching performances.
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Opera Now
November 2025
"I walked into this assuming that if somebody's on death row, they probably deserve to be there. I unlearned a lot of things that I think the criminal justice system is very happy to let people assume. I'm grateful to this piece for challenging me to ask, ‘Okay, where do I really sit? How do I feel about this thing that both affects and ends lives?’"
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Limelight Magazine
October 2025
Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and Heggie have worked in recital and on song cycles, so it’s little surprise that she delivers an incandescent performance.
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San Francisco Chronicle
September 2025
“It shows you the story from all the different aspects,” Barton said. At no point does it tell you, ‘You have to be on his side,’ or ‘You shouldn’t be on his side. I’m so glad it’s Jake Heggie who wrote this because he really knows how to flesh out a human story, and Sister Helen Prejean is as human as it gets in so many ways.”
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ArtsATL
August 2025
When Barton first heard “Look Me in the Eye,” one of the big arias in Jake Heggie’s opera Intelligence, the power of the music left her in tears. She would participate in the 2023 world-premiere performance of Intelligence. Now, a live recording of that world premiere by Houston Grand Opera is being released by HGO and LSO Live.
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Gramophone Magazine
August 2025
This live recording of Jake Heggie's Intelligence was made during the world-premiere run of performances at Houston Grand Opera. Intelligence tells the true story of two women who ran a Union spy ring during the American Civil War.
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Opera Magazine
July 2025
"Dead Man Walking resonates with audiences 25 years after it debuted because the death penalty is still in effect for so many states. And whatever your opinions on the subject matter may be, this opera will meet you where you are. It doesn't tell you what to think, but it absolutely requires you to see it from multiple points of view.”
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The Times
June 2025
This year Pride has taken on a different meaning for the 43-year-old opera star, who came out publicly as bisexual in 2014. “I’m reminded of how Pride started as a riot, as a fight for rights, for liberty, for freedom. We are who we are. We are not going to silence ourselves.”
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Financial Times
June 2025
“I’ve been through the diet culture thing. I’ve come out on the other side and I’m now at the healthiest place of my life. And that’s not because I’m skinny; it’s because I’m paying attention to [the things that] impact my health. I’m also at the top of my career, but these messages continue to come from people who just have no place trying to dictate how somebody else’s body should look.”
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